A recently new izakaya place just opened up around Yonge and Wellsley, Nejibee Izakaya.

The restaurant is actually quite hidden, I couldn’t find it at first because when I got to their address at 24 Wellsley St, I only saw a grocery store. So apparently Nejibee is right behind it near a street called Phipps St. instead.

I came here for lunch to find it rather empty with only 1 table seated. The friendly waitress seated me at the teppanyaki bar table with a lunch menu. Before arriving, I already had an idea of what to get but to my surprise, it was only a shortened lunch menu that nothing appealed to me. I kindly asked the waitress if I can get the okonomiyaki and a yakitori instead. I believed both were on the dinner menu and the chef was fine to make that order. :) thanks!

Apparently my okonomiyaki came with a salad and soup. Unfortunately, I didn’t like the salad one bit..the dressing was off, not the typical vinaigrette maybe just some olive oil? The lettuce were really hard too..not crunchy at all.

My chicken yakitori then arrived! It was just grilled with sprinkled sea salt to my preference than terriyaki sauce. Quite salty but delicious. Unfortunately, the last piece on the skewer was not fully cooked. eeks!

Lastly, my okonomiyaki ($12.50). Surprisingly, it came with udon at the bottom, I’ve never had that in my okonomiyaki before; it was really filling.

I saw the chef make this from beginning till end as I sat at the teppanyaki table (quite greasy sitting there I would say!)… I really didn’t think it looked any good while he was cooking it but I’m glad it looked amazing at it’s completion! The egg definitely made it look a lot better! I also saw what brand of udon he used and I’ve bought that brand in a grocery before and it’s not the best. If they had used a different type of udon, I think the okonomiyaki udon would have been a lot better; the one used was skinnier and not chewy. There were slices of fatty pork at the bottom as well, however, not very evenly distributed since I couldn’t find a piece of pork anymore as I eat towards the other side of the plate.

Overall, friendly customer service. Relatively spacious place and big windows. I was told that their liquor license is not yet ready. Hopefully they’ll get more license once that’s settle. I would say there’s a lot of room for improvement but it’s only been a couple of weeks since their grand opening.